From 100,000 to 500,000 files labelled a day
Microsoft is expanding Microsoft Purview auto-labeling capacity in SharePoint and OneDrive: the maximum goes from 100,000 to 500,000 files per tenant per day. Public preview rolls out in September 2026 and general availability during October.
So what changes?
An organisation can identify and automatically apply sensitivity labels to far more content, without relying on every user to do it by hand. Auto-labeling policies already active in SharePoint and OneDrive pick up the new limit with no changes needed.
Those labels then underpin controls such as:
- document encryption;
- access restrictions;
- DLP policies;
- protection against inappropriate sharing.
In the same set of improvements, policy simulation goes from 4 to 20 million items and each policy can target more SharePoint sites. Service-side auto-labeling still requires E5-tier licences (Microsoft 365 E5, E5 Compliance or E5 Information Protection & Governance).
What does this have to do with Copilot?
Quite a lot. If Microsoft 365 Copilot is going to search, summarise and connect corporate information, you first need to be clear about what information you hold, which of it is sensitive and who should be able to access it.
More auto-labeling capacity does not solve that on its own, but it makes classification at scale more feasible in repositories nobody has reviewed for years.
Before preparing for Copilot, I would review permissions, classification and information protection first.
What would I do now?
If you already have auto-labeling policies, check the activity report for how much content was still pending under the old limit: that is where the change will show most. If you do not, start with a policy in simulation mode over the sites holding the most sensitive information, validate the results and then turn it on.
What each Microsoft Purview licence includes explains which plan covers auto-labeling and what E3 and Business Premium leave out. If you want to measure your starting point, the Microsoft 365 security assessment guide walks through permissions and sharing.
Does your licence include auto-labeling?
Tick the licences in your tenant and the simulator shows which Purview capabilities you have and which you do not.
Open the Purview simulator →Microsoft announcementMC1461154: auto-labeling scale increase for SharePoint and OneDrive · MC1469958: auto-labeling simulation, scope and reporting
DocumentationMicrosoft Learn: automatically apply a sensitivity label
Information reviewed on 19 September 2026. At that date Microsoft Learn still states the 100,000 files-a-day limit; the new limit applies as the rollout announced in the Message Center progresses.